This blog provides delicious,traditional, vegetarian, South Indian Recipes from my mother Chitra Amma's kitchen. There are few 'world recipes' as well!
Thanks to Shravan, Pranav, Akash, Tara, Guggs, Shankari, Adu, Dhrithi, and Appa Ramachandran for the photos!

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Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Par boiled rice is known as Puzhungal arisi in Tamil. Traditionally Puzhungal arisi was obtained by soaking and boiling the nellu / Paddy ( Rice along with the husk) in huge copper pots over fire wood stoves. The par boiled paddy was then drained and spread out to dry. The dried paddy was then manually pounded in massive stone mortars using heavy wooden pestles and dehusked. This procedure ensured that all the essential nutrients like vitamins and minerals from the outer core of the grain were moved in and tightly packed into the grain. The power packed Red Parboiled Rice / sivappupuzhungal arisi is known to be a highly nutritious cereal.

To make the traditional Sevaiout of raw rice flour a double cooking procedure has to be followed. Preparing Sevai using par boiled rice is much quicker and more easy, since the rice is already processed once.

PAR BOILED RED RICE SEVAI

INGREDIENTS

Par boiled red rice - 2 cups

Salt - 1/4 tsp

METHOD

1. Wash and soak the par boiled red rice for six hours.

2. Grind the soaked rice with salt adding the required quantity of water.

3. The batter should be smooth and it should be of idly batter consistency.

4. Steam the batter in greased idly moulds for fifteen minutes in a pressure cooker without using the weight .

5. Remove the ' idlies' while still warm and cut them into strips.

6. Grease the insides of a chakli press or a sevainazhi / sevai press and pack it tightly with the steamed idly strips. I used a chakli press.

7. Press the Sevai on to a wide plate taking care not to allow the strands to pile up in one clump. Press all the idly stripsinto sevai strands. Do not forget to grease the press every time you pack it with idlies.

8. Cool the Sevai thoroughly and then season it as per you wish.

Lemon sevai, coconut sevai, sweet sevai, curd sevai are few of the varieties which can be prepared using the pressed sevai strands.

Here is how I prepared Par Boiled Red Rice Vegetable Sevai :

INGREDIENTS

Carrots - ( Peeled and chopped into thin and long sticks) - 1/2 cup

Capsicum - ( Chopped into thin long pieces) - 1/2 cup

Cabbage - ( chopped into thin long pieces ) - 1/2 cup

Onion - ( Chopped into thing long slices ) - 1/4 cup

Ginger - ( julienned ) - 1 tbsp

Garlic - ( finely chopped ) - 1tbsp

Tamarind - 1 small marble size ball (Soaked )

Red chillies - 4

Small Tomato - 1 ( Chopped)

Salt - 1 1/2 tsps

Sesame oil - 3 tbsps

METHOD

1. Dry roast red chillies and grind with soaked tamarind and the chopped tomato pieces into a smooth paste and keep aside.

2. Heat oil in a kadai and add ginger and garlic.

3. Add all the chopped vegetables and stir fry vigorously until they become crisp and cooked.

4. Blend in the tomato tamarind paste and fry for two more minutes.

5. Mix in salt and switch off flame.

6. Mix the vegetables gently with the cooled Sevai . Cooling the Sevai before seasoning will help in keeping the strands long and unbroken.

PAR BOILED RED RICE VEGETABLE SEVAI is an excellent all time meal especially for children.

A very good recipe with very well explained and pictorially represented. I like the recipe style in detail. It is very informative as it is supported by pictures.I have booked all the ingredients required from online supermarket and will try this out.Thanks for the recipe.

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Welcome to Chitra Amma's Kitchen.

I am Dibs. I am a born Foodie. I love to cook; love to eat; love to feed folks who appreciate good food. Blogging provides me a great way of documenting my mother, Chitra’s recipes, as a ready reference irrespective which time zone I live in. Amma honestly makes the best food I've ever had, and somehow, the anecdotes she tells us, make the dishes taste all the better.Most posts here are written by my mother Chitra. It’s her recipes, along with related reminiscences of people, places and anecdotes. She writes, I post!What started for a lark, has now become a serious hobby, drawing in participation from the whole family. My father, S.R. Ramachandran has started clicking away every dish made at home! Aunts, cousins, siblings, contribute to photos, and ask for recipes.We try to illustrate implements such as utensils, grinding stones and so on from the ‘pre-electric-mixer’ days wherever possible. We hope this will make an interesting read for future generations, on how food was cooked in earlier times!The site is still in its infancy, and slowly evolving, as our skills improve! We invite your comments, ideas, and questions, and will attempt answering them.

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